Who Can Really Say?

Sunday Baseball

I went trolling around some baseball blogs this morning and was reminded that Phillies fans should be visiting Mike's Baseball Rants.

And from Mike I found Rich's Weekend Baseball BEAT. Earlier in July Rich started posting a series on the original Bill James Baseball Abstracts, reviewing and excerpting them one at a time. He's completed the first four Abstracts (1977, 1978, 1979, and 1980) so far. I bought the 1982 Abstract in May of that year and was instantly hooked. I own them all plus a few other James' books, some not seen here.



Next, pictures of my sock drawer. Anyways . . .

Rich quotes from the '79 Abstract:

. . .You will note, if you read carefully, that I often use mechanical metaphors. I am a mechanic with numbers, tinkering with the records of baseball games to see how the machinery of the baseball offense works. I do not start with the numbers any more than a mechanic starts with a monkey wrench. I start with the game, with the things that I see and the things that people say there. And I ask, “Is it true? Can you validate it? Can you measure it? How does it fit in with the rest of the machinery?” And for those answers, I go to the record books.

What is remarkable to me is that I have so little company. Baseball keeps copious records, and people talk about them and argue about them and think about them a great deal. Why doesn’t anybody use them? Why doesn’t anybody say, in the face of this contention or that one, “Prove it. Baseball’s got a million records and if that is true you can prove it, so prove it.” Why do people argue about which catcher throws best, rather than figure the catchers’ records against base-stealers? I really don’t know.

But that, essentially, is what I do. I hope you like it. But if not, your money will be expeditiously [my emphasis] refunded.

That's really all James is about. Remember that the next time you hear some idiot baseball announcer or columnist dump on him, or Billy Beane, or Theo Epstein. And no, I don't count Joe Morgan among idiot baseball announcers. I wouldn't want to insult the idiots.

Posted by Peter at August 1, 2004 11:09 AM